This Week In The Laboratories Of Democracy

(A brief heads-up: 2015 is the Centennial Year of the birth of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Updates will follow throughout the year leading up to Sister Rosetta's 100th on March 20. Sing out, sister!)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as you know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where our conversations were short and sweet.

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Our tour is a short one this week, owing to holiday traffic. Let's begin in New Mexico, where smiling folk with bad intentions are trying to make sure people don't use solar power overmuch by making itas expensive as possible. And, of course, it's all in the interest of "fairness."

"With solar customers who don't use a lot of energy, other customers are actually picking up a greater piece of the cost," Susan Snyder Sponar, senior communications representative at PNM, told ThinkProgress. Sponar said that most of the costs for maintaining their grid are not in fixed customer charges, but in energy charges. Since solar customers are generating a lot of their own energy, they aren't paying the full cost of keeping the grid at the ready.

The sensible solution -- Update the damn grid! -- is, of course, impossible because freedom, that's why. So what we do is pit those freeloading solar-powered hippies against the hard-working, salt o' the earth carbon burners, and the people who make all the money continue to make all the money while those two groups fight it out.

PNM is considering buying a coal mine in northwest New Mexico after its lease runs out in 2017. The mine owner, BHP Billiton, has been supplying PNM with coal since the plant opened in 1973. Nanasi said that PNM is potentially squandering a big opportunity by not shifting away from coal at this juncture. It's a decision that will impact electricity rates and carbon emissions for decades to come.

He was filming when he fatally shot Kelly Danaher as the 36-year-old teacher, his father and other men argued with Rodriguez over loud music. He can be heard on the video repeatedly saying, "I am in fear for my life" as they argue.

So, if you want to bust a cap in your neighbor's ass, make sure that you make a contemporaneous video record trail. If you have time to get the casus belli witnessed and notified, that's cool, too. This presents busting a cap in someone's ass with a lot more fuss and bother than it used to entail, but that's progress for you.

Continuing in an easterly direction in the hopes of finding a star to guide us, we come to Georgia, which just rid itself of Congressmen Phil Gingrey and Paul (Lies From The Pit Of Hell) Broun, but which made up for it by electing a guy named Barry Lowdermilk to the Congress,and Barry Lowdermilk is the vin Moltke of the War On Christmas.

"It seems like it has gotten to the point where we even have to defend our rights that are given to us to celebrate the birth of Christ and even just the celebration of Christmas has been under fire by the far-left," claimed Loudermilk. "I sense that there is some momentum that we haven't seen in many years in this nation that people are just kind of tired of political correctness, they're tired of having their rights stepped upon and they're ready for something different," added Loudermilk. According to The Huffington Post, Loudermilk was endorsed by Christian historian David Barton in 2013.

(Note: calling David Barton a historian is like calling Jeff Dahmer a foodie. Pass it on.)

You will undoubtedly notice that Lowdermilk made these comments on an electric radio program hosted by Josh Duggar, the eldest child of the pullulation sensations, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, whose program appears on the multiply ironically named Learning Channel. Josh now works fora recognized hate group. Well done, Josh.

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And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, from which Official Blog Santa Wrangler Friedman Of The Plainsbrings us the latest in the ongoing saga of the state's attempts to poison people to death.

"We know things in medicine from two reasons: We know because we have lots of clinical experience and we pass this along, and we know because we formally study it," Waisel said. "We will never get clinical experience with these doses of midazolam, nor will we be able to study it." The drug is just a sedative, so it only reduces anxiety and stops people from remembering events after it's administered.

I would imagine that your execution would be one of those things you'd prefer not to remember, if you weren;t, you know, dead.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

It's always been an honored time but just recently it seems like it has gotten to the point where we have to even defend our rights that are given to us to celebrate the birth of Christ and even just the celebration of Christmas has been under fire by the far-left," he said. - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gop-congressman-elect-barry-loudermilk-will-never-surrender-war-christmas#sthash.gqY0R5KE.dpuf

It's always been an honored time but just recently it seems like it has gotten to the point where we have to even defend our rights that are given to us to celebrate the birth of Christ and even just the celebration of Christmas has been under fire by the far-left," he said. - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gop-congressman-elect-barry-loudermilk-will-never-surrender-war-christmas#sthash.gqY0R5KE.dpuf